# Israel says troops will stay on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon indefinitely
Israel’s defense minister said Israeli troops will remain indefinitely on the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, signaling a more open-ended military presence in territory that lies close to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
According to Middle East Eye’s report on January 28, 2025, Defense Minister Israel Katz made the announcement during a visit to Israeli posts on the mountain summit. He said the troops would stay in the buffer zone established by a 1974 agreement, framing the deployment as necessary to protect the communities of the Golan Heights and northern Israel.
The statement is notable because it appears to move beyond earlier language suggesting the deployment was temporary. Katz said the army should be ready “for both defence and offence” and warned that Israel would not allow hostile forces to establish themselves in southern Syria. He also said the country would not return to what he described as the pre-October 7 security reality and would rely on its own commanders and soldiers rather than outside protection.
The report places the statement in a broader regional context. Israel has taken advantage of instability following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in early December to expand its presence in the Golan Heights and has carried out airstrikes across Syria. Syria’s new authorities, according to the report, called for an Israeli withdrawal and said they were ready to redeploy forces to the mountainous plateau.
That broader context matters because the Mount Hermon deployment is not a stand-alone military footnote. It intersects with unresolved border arrangements, the long contest over the Golan Heights and the security vacuum that followed the collapse of the Assad government. Israel’s posture on the mountain effectively shapes the balance of power along one of the most sensitive parts of the Syrian-Israeli frontier.
The evidence supplied for the story comes from a single report, so the factual core is limited to Katz’s announcement and the setting in which it was made. Even so, the implications are significant. An “indefinite” presence suggests a move from reactive occupation to a managed and potentially durable military position.
The report also says Katz mentioned building ties with “friendly populations,” especially Druze communities, implying that Israel may be trying to combine security control with selective local outreach. For neighbors and international observers, however, the central fact is the same: Israeli troops are being described not as temporary visitors but as forces with no scheduled exit.
